Broken Promises
by Runawaybaby555
Summary: Aria figures out who murdered Alison DiLaurentis that night, and the fallout is deadly. ONE-SHOT! Rated T for minor violence. Sparia friendship. Read and review please!


**Hi guys! So, this story randomly popped into my head, and I was like "I HAVE to post it immediately!" I hope you guys like it! Review and tell me your thoughts!**

**Also, update on Saving the Best for Last: the final chapter should be up soon! I just want to revise it/get another opinion on it so that it can be PERFECT for your reading pleasure!**

* * *

Aria stood as straight and as tall as she could in front of the man who had conceived her, holding in her shaking palm the book that revealed everything. The book that didn't just tell the story that it held within its pages, but told a completely different story altogether.

_Lolita_.

"You gave this to her," Aria whispered, trembling. "You… you killed her?"

Byron hung his head. "She… she threatened to tell people. About us."

Aria gulped. "And by us… you don't mean you and Meredith, do you."

Byron shook his head morbidly. "No, I don't."

A tear escaped Aria's widened eyes and trickled gracefully down the frame of her face. She already knew. They had found Alison's diary earlier that day, and it had spilled everything. The book. The meaning behind it. The _relationship_ shared between her best friend and her father.

But hearing him say it here, in front of her, not only clarified her thoughts, but also exacerbated them entirely. Even so, she needed to know the truth.

Aria narrowed her eyes in contempt. "You mean you and _Alison_."

Byron slowly raised his head, and looked at his daughter with so much sorrow. She ignored it.

"All this time, you told me you ended it with Meredith," she said with a voice thick with anger. "And the entire time, you were involved in a completely different affair. With a _teenager_."

"Aria, what happened between me and Alison is over," Byron attempted to reason as he stepped forward.

"_Clearly_ it _is_ over!" she shouted as she threw the book to the ground sharply. "You _killed_ her! _You_ ended it!"

"I had no choice!" he shouted back. "I… I _panicked_! I didn't know what she would do, and… and she kept pushing and pushing and-"

"I don't need the details!" Aria snapped. She felt nauseous, like she was going to throw up any second.

"She was blackmailing me, sweetheart," Byron whispered. "She wouldn't stop, and… you know Alison. She was never _going_ to stop. She had no boundaries."

"Of _course_ I knew Alison," Aria said. "She was my best friend! And… and you took her away from me!"

"Aria, listen to me-"

"NO!" she screamed. "I… I can't do this."

She started to walk toward the door, but Byron grabbed her arm before she could go any further and pulled her toward him so that she was facing him. She yelped in pain, but he didn't loosen his grip.

"You can't tell anyone about this!" he begged. "You _know_ what will happen to me if you do. You don't want that, _do you?_"

Aria looked at him in shock. After all this time, he was asking her to keep _more_ secrets for him? She yanked back her arm forcefully.

"I made a promise to myself the _first_ time something like this happened that I wouldn't make the same mistake of hiding things from the people I care about for you," she said tearfully. "I… I have to tell the police, Dad. I'm sorry."

She started to turn around again, but before she knew it she was being thrust against the wall with a surprising amount of strength. Her head hit the wall painfully, and she closed her eyes and moaned in agony. When she opened them, she was horrified to find her father on top of her, murder etched into his eyes.

Probably the same murder that was etched into his eyes when he killed her best friend.

"Daddy," she whispered, frightened and bewildered.

He got lost in her doe eyes for a second, and felt remorse swimming through his veins. He was about to hurt his little girl. How could he do this?

It was gone in an instant, however, as he pulled a gun out of his pocket. Aria widened her eyes to their fullest extent.

"Are you going to kill me like you killed her?" she asked dreadfully. She winced as the horrible words left her mouth, but she needed to know how far he was planning on going with this. Byron stared at the gun as he held it up to the light with shaking hands, but soon firmed his grip as he stared at her with those same murderous eyes. The ferocity in them sent chills down Aria's spine.

"I love you, Aria," he whispered in a quaking voice. "I love you more than anything in my life. You're my daughter! I raised you! But I… I can't go to jail."

"And you would _kill_ your own daughter to make _sure_ of that?" Aria snapped in disbelief. She really _couldn't_ believe it. She always knew she would die someday, as everyone did, but she never imagined it like this: coerced against a wall, scared, shocked, and hurt, while her own _father_ held a gun to her head.

He had lost it. He had completely lost it.

"You're… you're _crazy!"_ she howled as more tears escaped from her eyes.

"It doesn't have to end this way, Aria!" he said sternly. "I don't have to do this to you, and I certainly don't _want_ to! If you could just cooperate-"

"That's not even the _point_ right now!" she yelled exasperatedly. "Don't you care about me at all?"

"Of course I do, Aria, I already told you. I love you!"

As he was saying this, Aria quickly darted her eyes across the living room. Mike was at lacrosse practice, so he wasn't there to hear any of what was going on, and she knew that if she screamed loud enough for the neighbors to hear, her dad would shoot her. She needed to find a way to get out of the situation with stealth.

"I want to believe that," she whispered, "but I can't. You're _sick_."

As she said this, she smoothly reached into her back pocket and pulled out her cell phone. With her hand still behind her back, she felt along the keyboard for the speed dial number for the one person who could help her out of this situation, and pressed, "send".

* * *

Spencer reached into her pantry to pull out a bag of pretzels. As she opened the bag, she began munching on them senselessly, her mind wandering to what happened earlier that day. They had gone back into the basement of the school building and, to their surprise, Ali's _real_ diary was back. They had skimmed through the pages of the diary and found a dreadful piece of information.

Aria's dad hadn't just had an affair with Meredith, but with _Alison_ as well.

The whole ordeal made Spencer sick to her stomach, and she could only imagine how Aria was feeling. She could still vividly remember Aria's face draining of all color as she read Alison's descriptions of her time with Mr. Montgomery, how he treated her, how he gave her the book _Lolita_ as a gift, the whole thing. Spencer could see that Aria was about to crumble any minute, but she knew that Aria didn't like letting other people in, especially when it came to her family, so Aria had just emotionlessly said she would talk to her dad and had walked out the door. That was four hours ago, and now Spencer had no idea on what was going on with Aria. Had she talked to her dad? And if so, what was his explanation?

Her thoughts were interrupted by her phone ringing. She picked it up and examined the screen.

It was Aria.

Spencer took in a deep breath, preparing for the worst, and then answered. But before she could mutter a "hello", her ears were met with the sound of screaming on the other end of the line.

"_Dad, please don't do this. Don't make me lie for you!"_ Spencer recognized Aria's tear-infested voice immediately.

"_I have to, Aria!_" she heard Byron scream. _"Just promise me you won't say anything, and I won't shoot. Okay?"_

Spencer's blood ran cold, and she felt her phone slip out of her hand and clatter to the ground. _No_.

In one swift movement, she picked her phone off of the ground, grabbed her car keys off of the kitchen counter, and walked out of her house and into her car as she drove off to the Montgomery house at approximately 90 miles an hour.

* * *

"I can't do that, Dad!" Aria cried. "She was my _best friend_! We've been trying to solve her murder for over a _year_ now, and the culprit was right in front of me the _whole time_! I can't believe I let myself believe you when you lied to my _face_ and said you had nothing to do with it!"

"Aria, don't make me do this," Byron said, his voice cracking. "Don't make me hurt you like this."

"I'm not the one making the decision, _you_ are!" Aria shouted.

"ARIA-"

"I care about Mom, too, you know," she whispered. Byron lowered his gun for a minute, confused.

Aria raised her head and looked up at him, eyes swimming with betrayal. "I told her when she found out about the _first_ affair that I wouldn't keep secrets from her anymore. I said that as soon as I found out about something like this happening again, I would tell her. I don't want to lose her trust again, Dad. Don't make me do that. I have to turn you in! I'm sorry! There's too much that I would _lose_ for you, and so many _other_ people would lose! _Please_, just _give it up!"_

Byron's mouth hung open in surprise, but then he closed it. He slowly raised his gun again. "Well, then. You leave me no choice. I'm sorry, Aria."

Before she could register what was happening, Aria kneed her father in the stomach. He doubled over and dropped the gun. In the time that he was in this position, wincing in pain, Aria kicked the gun, and it skidded over to the other side of the room.

Aria started to run after it, but Byron tripped her. She fell forward onto her stomach, and the force that she hit the ground with knocked the wind out of her. She didn't let it stop her, though. She stumbled back to her feet, but Byron was too fast. He started to lunge ahead of her, but she grabbed his arm with enough strength that he faltered backward slightly.

He ended up bumping into Aria, sending her tiny body to the ground. She got up quickly, however, as she crawled over with adrenalized speed to where the gun was. Byron was crawling over to it, too, at an equal speed.

Then, someone had caught the gun, someone had rolled over onto his or her back, someone had pulled the trigger, twice for good measure, and _someone_ had fallen, and was now lying on top of the other. Motionless. Breathless.

_Dead_.

* * *

Spencer pulled up to the house, and was immediately met with the sound of two gunshots ringing through the air.

"ARIA!" she screamed. She threw the door open, hurled herself out of her car, nearly tripping on the pavement, and darted toward the house. The door was unlocked, so she thrust it open.

She nearly passed out at the sight before her.

Aria was on the ground, covered in blood and shaking like a leaf. She held a gun in one hand, and her other hand was shaking so horribly Spencer would have thought she was having a seizure under different circumstances. But that wasn't even the worst part.

On top of Aria was her father, who was lying unmoving in a pool of blood that seemed to just keep expanding.

"Oh my god," Spencer whispered as she rushed over to Aria. She gently pushed Byron's body off of Aria, and carefully pulled Aria up into a sitting position. She took a good look at Aria, who was still shaking terribly. Her jeans and white shirt completely caked in Byron's blood, and there was a dead look in her eyes, as they turned almost black, the life being entirely sucked out of them.

"Aria, calm down," Spencer said softly. "It's okay, you're fine. You're safe."

Aria just continued to shake, not uttering a word. Spencer grew worried. "Aria, _please_ say something!"

Aria lifted her dull eyes up to meet Spencer's. "S-s-spence," she stuttered, and then completely broke down. Spencer embraced the tiny girl as she continued to sob into her arms, rubbing her back soothingly.

"I killed him, Spencer," Aria wailed. "He killed Alison, and… and… and I k-k-killed _him_."

"Shhhh," Spencer said quietly as she rocked Aria back and forth. "You had to. You wouldn't be here if you didn't."

"I'm a _murderer_, Spence," Aria said roughly. "I _murdered_ him. I just sunk down to his level. I'm… I'm just _destroying_ everything that I touch."

Spencer maneuvered Aria into her lap as she continued to fall apart, and Spencer just swaddled her in her arms and did her best to comfort her, but nothing was working. Aria was a complete mess.

Spencer paused to gently kiss the back of Aria's head before whispering, "No, you couldn't. You would never hurt anyone. And no one could ever be _harmed_ by having you in their life."

Aria looked up at Spencer with watery eyes, and then finally hugged her back. "Th-thank you," she whispered tearfully. "For... for being here."

Spencer started to cry along with Aria, and the two sat there in each other's arms with a dead Byron next to them, sobbing to the point that they could barely breathe, until they fell asleep with Aria still in Spencer's lap and Spencer's arms still wrapped tightly around Aria's small frame.

At some point, Spencer stopped telling Aria that she was okay. She stopped telling her that everything was going to be okay. Because it wasn't.

Nothing would be okay for a long, long time.


End file.
